China Mobile ‘to sell 55m 3G handsets

China Mobile Ltd, the nation’s biggest telecom carrier by subscriber numbers, expects to sell 55 million handsets running on its third generation (3G) wireless network this year, according to a company news release.

As of October, China Mobile had sold 41.59 million TD-SCDMA 3G network handsets, the release said. During the same period, the company attracted 79.3 million 3G subscribers, the most among China’s three telecom carriers.

About 300 mobile phone makers, including Samsung, HTC, Huawei and ZTE, have developed mobile devices for China Mobile’s 3G network. The TD-SCDMA product line has covered entry-level handset to high-end devices, the company said.

The release also revealed that Nokia is to introduce its flagship mobile phone Lumia 920 to China Mobile’s 3G network on Wednesday. Nokia Lumia 920 is a smartphone running on the Windows Phone 8 mobile operating system.

The mobile network has just started sales of HTC smartphones based on the Windows Phone 8 operating system, and this week has started taking pre-orders for Apple’s iPhone 5.

Ku also said that about 190 million 3G mobile devices will be sold this year in China, up 73 percent year-on-year.

The company was also the first Chinese telecom operator to have Apple Inc’s iPhone series on contract.